Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The 1998 Robert Smigel animated short film "Conspiracy Theory Rock", part of a March 1998 "TV Funhouse" segment, has been removed from all subsequent airings of the Saturday Night Live episode where it originally appeared. Michaels claimed the edit was done because it "wasn't funny". The film is a scathing critique of corporate media ownership, including NBC's ownership by General Electric/Westinghouse.

Three Monkeys Say:Everything seems so easy when explained by a School House Rock jingle.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

You know, I normally try to make a rule about not dedicating posts to discussing social media trends.

But damn it, I can't think of anything else to write about today, and this Twitter hash-tag has me in stitches.

The National Security Agency has recently claimed that hacktivist groups like Anonymous could, within the next year or two, be both capable and malicious enough to take down sectors of the power grid with their computer voodoo. In response, a well known Twitter account associated with Anonymous accused the NSA of fear mongering, saying that such an attack against the power grid, which many Americans with specific medical needs depend on daily, would be a direct contradiction to the goals of the group.

What has jumped out of this is the Twitter hash-tag #NSATheyKnowShit. I'll share a few of the gems here, but do a search for it yourself. It's worth your time. Assuming of course you have as much time to waste as I do.

1. Hackers are the reason I can't ever fold those stupid bedsheets with the elastic corners. #NSATheyKnowShit
2. Hackers are the reason that I stubbed my toe #NSAtheyknowshit
3. Hackers are the reason I can't remember last night #NSATheyKnowShit
4. Son, hackers are the reason your mother and I got divorced. #NSAtheyknowshit
5. Hackers are the reason why the rum is always gone! #NSATheyKnowShit
6. hackers are the reason you can't whistle while eating crackers #NSATheyKnowShit
7. ...hackers are responsible for Bieber #NSAtheyknowshit
8. Hackers are the reason why vampires nowadays turned into sparkling shit #NSAtheyknowshit
9. Hackers are the reason Al Gore believes in global warming #NSATheyKnowShit
10. Hackers are the reason one cannot simply walk into Mordor! #NSAtheyknowshit

How's that for a top 10 list? Eat your heart out, Letterman.

In closing, since I have no idea what YouTube video could possibly match up with something so absurd, it's time for something completely different.

Three Monkeys Say:No fish were harmed in the filming of that clip. We think...

Thursday, February 16, 2012

OK, it was all fun and games when the headlines were telling of mass avian suicide last year, with bird death tolls inexplicably rising into unheard of numbers. Or the stories of millions of fish dying across the globe. We all stood around the water coolers and quipped that surely this would be a herald of the end of days, and laughed. Well friends, I'm no longer laughing with this next story.

According to LiveScience, dolphins have been beaching themselves in record numbers across the globe. In Cape Cod alone about 5 times the average number of dolphins over a period of 12 years have died so far. Rescue workers are doing their best to save the creatures, but reports are making the fight seem an uphill battle.

The piece goes on to provide a number of plausible explanations for the odd occurance, ranging from the old standby Global Warming to disease and movement of prey. But there is no mention of apocalyptic explanations, or the similarity to the dolphins in Douglass Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which the world's population of dolphins flees the earth moments before it is obliterated to make room for a new intergalactic super highway. Is it possible that these intelligent sea creatures are shuffling off this mortal coil and fleeing to the astral plane ahead of some unforeseen catastrophe?

Forget possible. It's a fact. You heard it here first kids. Shout it from the mountain. The sky is indeed falling.

Three Monkeys Say:Some one call the expert, this needs to be investigated. Post-Haste.

Apparently all jazzed up on the win of officially declaring pizza sauce to be a vegetable contributing to a balanced meal, whatever Godless government association that's responsible for making these calls is swinging for the fences.

As the story goes, a young preschooler was stopped from eating her homemade bagged lunch when a state worker had deemed that her meal did not meet federal regulations for a complete and balanced meal. The agent was doing his patriotic duty of inspecting the lunch boxes of all the preschooler's when he declared that the child's lunch, which was comprised of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice, and a bag of chips, did not meet the guidelines set down by the US Department of Agriculture. The article goes on to discuss how any child that is found with a bagged lunch deemed to be lacking in nutrition, the child will be provided for from the school cafeteria, and the parents will be charged for the cost of the school lunch.

Which is exactly what happened. The child was provided with a cafeteria lunch tray, on which was piled a heaping helping of healthy...chicken nuggets. Of which the child ate only three pieces, and then returned to finish out her day at class.

OK. Now, I suppose I can understand the requirement for children to have nutrious meals provided for them. Where I start getting confused is how this requires having an agent from the state inspecting lunch boxes. Beyond that, if they so clearly have a problem with kid's not getting enough good food, how is it that the child was able to eat only three of her chicken nuggets without this same agent making sure she finished the entire meal? After all, the nutritional value of an item is pretty much a moot point if you don't eat the damn thing.

But even better, what guidelines are they going by that declared this child's lunch lacking? OK, I guess I can understand the potato chips if you're going to get crazy about the whole thing, but in what world is replacing a turkey sandwich with a pile of processed chicken goo a step in the right direction?

See kids, this is what happens when you let the feds into the cafeteria. Nothing is an acceptable food item unless it comes prepackaged in a non-labeled GMO package straight from the Monsanto trucks. Don't worry though, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before all food available for sale meets these unpublished guidelines, and we can save a little money on the men in black investigating your children's paper bags.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

They say excuses are like assholes. Everyone's got one, and they all stink. What makes my excuse different is I don't care to share it with you. Just know that I have no legitimate reason for missing all this time. Sure, I could spin you a yarn about taking a brief leave of absence to allow the news reels to gain a bit of a head start so I'd have more to talk about, but it would feel hollow and empty. So, why don't we both just make a promise to pretend this never happened, and we'll keep plugging along like I've been here with you the whole time. Fuel up, rev your engines, and pop this bitch out of neutral. Let's do this.

It's that time of year again - that special day when Cupid flutters his fat little wings, flitting from tree to tree shooting heart tipped arrows with the sort of utter disregard for tact and propriety usually reserved for private speak-easy meetings on Capitol Hill involving leather and lace, water sports and bear mace.

Maybe I'm just aging, but I find it increasingly difficult to understand the social roots for these strange little steps we all agree to dance. In an effort to compile something worth while for you all this morning, I chose to valiantly wade deep into the morass of Valentine's Day (henceforth abbreviated as VD) opinion stories on the various news circuits. I've matured past my youthful days of getting a good gut laugh out of the over-hyped sentimentality of the whole affair. And I believe I'm past my conspiratorial ranting about capitalist schemes plotted in collusion between the fields of dental hygiene and blood diamond markets to produce a tidy first quarter profit. Instead, I find myself overcome with an underwhelming lack of interest. Another thousand words on how social media is the death of romance, or a vignette from some quack shrink about how seriously you take the validity of VD is telling of how serious you take your relationships and I'll be forced to politely ask my big friend Chief to kindly wipe the glazed drool off my chin before he puts his weight on top of the pillow.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything insidious about the emotion of love. I'm just trying to add my voice to the much belabored point that this image of love that has been cultivated in the social subconscious these past few decades is simply unrealistic. The very concept of VD as a special day where you can step up and assert your romantic love for a person enough in a day that it will carry all year is ludicrous. Go ahead, strap on your leather jacket and hold a boom box under her window and blast Peter Gabriel until the cows come home. What the fuck are you going to talk about once the batteries on your ghetto blaster die out, though? Go and blow your overtime on the bouquet of GMO Monsanto Roses. Sure, they may stay in bloom an extra month, but I hope you have some pretty sweet smelling bullshit to fill the air with once those flowers finally wither and die. True love is not something that can be measured in candy hearts and candle-lit dinners. And this notion we're inundating our children with, that romance is as simple as a cardboard X-Men valentine and a creamy-filled chocolate, will be what eventually leads to the death of Cupid's touch. We place all this absurd attention on the courting process, that it seems we've forgotten the basics of human interaction. After all, what good will all those expensive French dinners do you when you realize you're suddenly 50 and can no longer stand the sight of the love of your life, simply because you never learned how to get to know her in the first place?

Is there a point to all this? Not really. It's my first day back and I just wanted to stretch the fingers over the keyboard and play a little bit. But I'll try and find one for you, so you don't feel like I've put you in a dour mood without reason. If you really want to celebrate VD this year, try and give this a shot. Go down to the mall and return the earrings. Call up the restaurant and cancel your reservations. Go down to wherever your significant other is working today, fake a family emergency to get them out of there, and just go home. Spend a few hours learning to be comfortable looking into their eyes, instead of stammering over empty conversation while wax drips onto the over-priced silk table cloth. Make sure you've got all these little basics covered before you nervously try and pull a flourish. After all, you need to learn to walk before you can waltz.

Three Monkeys Say:Throw on those Victoria's Secret wings and get your arrows baby. Let's get kinky.